Well, in that hit you miss. She'll not be hit With Cupid's arrow. She hath Dian's wit, And, in strong proff of chastity well armed, From Love's weak childish bow she lives uncharmed. She will not stay the siege of loving terms, Nor bide th' encounter...
Frodo gave a cry, and there was, fallen upon his knees at the chasm's edge. But Gollum, dancing like a mad thing, held aloft the ring, a finger still thrust within its circle. "Precious, precious, precious!" Gollum cried. "My Precious! O my Precious!...
Underground, in the dark wet hole that was home to the spiders and the rats, something moved. It had no right to be down there but it belonged nowhere else. Half drowned half alive it pushed the water ahead of it into the culverts and drains as it pa...
Let us also acknowledge that the hearts which suffer the most from our wars are those of mothers. Their vital voices have been left out of the political equation for too long. An Iraqi or American mother cries the same as an Israeli or Afghan mother....
With an ashamed sigh, I confessed, “You have seen nothing but the worst of me since then, Aeron. I’ve been a bitter, defiant, irrational shrew…and now I’m selfishly dragging you into a hopeless situation against your better judgment. What wou...
Gran runs her fingers through my hair, smiling down at me. I'm to weak to reach up and trace her laugh lines, but I trace them with my eyes, thinking of all the years that have gone by between Lucy and I with Gran. All of the memories held in those l...
The eyes of the future are looking back at us and they are praying for us to see beyond our own time. They are kneeling with hands clasped that we might act with restraint, that we might leave room for the life that is destined to come. To protect wh...
My gaze moved to Vance. He was looking up at me and I could read nothing in his eyes. "Another pop?" I asked. He shook his head but kept watching me. I looked at the floor and started from the room. I had to pass Vance's chair to get to the kitchen. ...
He took a hairpin out of my untidy hair (by now my complicated arrangement of ringlets must have looked as if a couple of birds had been nesting there); he took a strand of it and wound it around his finger. With his other hand he began stroking my f...
Nolan,” she said. “I’m…” Scared. Say it. Tell him the truth. But her mouth remained still against his. She couldn’t tell him how badly she wanted to pull him close, because then she may not let go. She couldn’t tell him how terrified sh...
He lowered his head, his mouth on her neck. “You’re all I think about. I can’t breathe without you in my head, my body, everywhere. Even when I close my eyes, you’re there...” Sera arched her neck and moaned, feeling as if every inch of her...
There are different forms of seduction, and the kind I have witnessed in Persian dancers is so unique, such a mixture of subtlety and brazenness, I cannot find a Western equivalent to compare it to. I have seen women of vastly different backgrounds t...
She wished she had cancer instead. She'd trade Alzheimer's for cancer in a heartbeat. She felt ashamed for wishing this, and it was certainly a pointless bargaining, but she permitted herself the fantasy anyway. With cancer, she'd have something to f...
All I want is someone decent.” She sniffled again, her eyes filling with tears. “You know? Kind. Good. Like in all those love stories I’m such an expert on. It can’t just be fiction. It can’t. Those guys are out there, I know it. I just can...
Surely, though, I must have stolen into the future and landed in an H.G. Wells-style world - a horrific, fantastic society in which people's faces contained only eyes, millions of healthy young adults and children dropped dead from the flu, boys got ...
The first morning I really sat and watched him it was a Tuesday. I know that because Tuesday is trash day for our neighborhood. Unlike me, he leaves gathering up his trash for the morning of pickup instead of doing it the night before. My alarm went ...
Terri had already gotten her panties into a bunch just from one little phone call, so he knew coming at her too much too fast would be more trouble than it was worth. He couldn’t exactly beat her into submission, not right away anyway. Although he ...
Did she make you laugh? Did she love you as much as you loved her? Did she protect you and warm you and keep you from suffering? Valentine turned her eyes away from him, unable to face the empty answer in his face but not wanting to stop saying what ...
I couldn't tell what colour her eyes were. They were wet and dark and shining, like pools of deep, still water. For a second I thought I could see pictures in them, like I was looking right inside her to where her memories were. She smiled, and I won...
Each in the most hidden sack kept the lost jewels of memory, intense love, secret nights and permanent kisses, the fragment of public or private happiness. A few, the wolves, collected thighs, other men loved the dawn scratching mountain ranges or ic...
I have a feeling,’ he said, ‘I have a feeling that we were meant to be together. That we have fought the good fight, side by side, in the past or in the future, I do not know. I am a rational man, but I have learned the value of a good companion,...
